Vanishing fish and more gnomes...

Well, I was going to write about our two new fish, but I haven't seen fin or scale of them all day. No, they haven’t put in an appearance and I haven't been able to get a picture of them swimming around in the water to illustrate this post.

We bought the fishes yesterday to celebrate the fact that I have cleaned out the pond, a disgusting and smelly job at the best of times but as I haven’t done it for years – well...

Anyway, we carefully released our two, as yet unnamed, lively white and orange comets into the crystal clear waters of our tiny pond and waited for them to begin to swim around. We waited and waited, but the pair of them just lay stock still on the floor of the pond.

“We’ll leave them alone for a while to get acclimatised” I said to Gaynor.

So we did and went out shopping for an hour or two and when we came home the fishes were nowhere to be seen. The pond was empty. We looked and searched, checked underneath the overhanging rocks, even poked around with a stick. But the fishes were gone, vanished. Our pond was empty.

The ensuing conversation revolved around whether a cat or a heron had had them. We decided it couldn’t be a cat as the pond-side would have been disturbed and the cat would have left traces - and we had seen a heron fly over a couple of days earlier.

Gaynor was worried that the fish had slipped down the back of the liner, I laughed and said that they were comets and not bloody flying fish, she replied that I should have put some net or something over the pond, I said they were only bloody fish, she said that it was a shame for them and how would I like to be eaten by a big scary heron, I said that it was better than being pecked by a bloody hen, she said that I could get my own tea, I said that I’d do a better job of it anyway and that I fancied fish… and so it went on.

Well, these things happen don’t they?

Later, after we’d forgotten about the argument, we went out to the pond to mourn the sad demise of our fishes and wonder further what had happened. We turned on the light above the pond, looked down into the water, and there they were, our fishes, slowly swimming about on the bottom of the pond as if nothing had happened. A heron hadn’t got them, neither had a cat, and it certainly wasn’t an alien abduction as I’d sarcastically suggested to Gaynor whilst we were arguing. They’d been hiding, that was all.

We subsequently discovered a fold in the side of the liner where they can hide from view completely, and I (as instructed) constructed a fish safety device this morning in the shape of a rather fancy wire screen to stop any cats, herons, or alien beings from trying to abduct and eat our fishes.

I haven’t seen them all day. They’re hiding again, which is a pity as I wanted to get a picture for my blog. Oh well, at least you get to see a picture of the abseiling gnomes I bought today from the pound shop.